Live and Learn
by Lilliwyn
Summary: As Commander Shepard leads her party of marines to find the lost pioneer team on Akuze, she finds consequences that she never dared to imagine. This is a story of how the Sole Survivor background may have played out. Please read and review!
1. Chapter 1

Hello! Lilliwyn is here again, with another story that the plot bunnies won't leave her alone with. I know that I should probably be working on my KotOR fic, but the bunnies just won't leave! So I did the only thing that would make them do so by writing this story. :)

This is not going to be a happy fic, as I'm sure you can imagine if you're familiar with the Sole Survivor background. It's not going to be very long either. It'll probably just have three or four chapters, although that may be subject to change. We'll just have to see.

Also, since I have two Shepards in this story, Kera is Commander Shepard. I hope that eliminates any confusion. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect. This is merely a story that takes place in that universe.

* * *

Commander Kera Shepard peered out the window at the planet that they were preparing to land on. Akuze was a planet that was lush and green with vegetation. She could see lakes and rivers from her angle up from the ship. It seemed to be a lovely planet. She now understood a little better why the Alliance was so eager to colonize Akuze. The soil was probably perfect for farming.

A little over a day ago, contact with the pioneer team who was sent to start the colonization of the planet was suddenly lost. Shepard and a team of twenty marines had been sent to investigate the cause of the loss and to search for survivors if something had come to harm them. Shepard certainly hoped that nothing did.

Laughter erupted from some of the marines who sat at the other side of the ship. Kera's younger sister, Elena Shepard, was among them. Kera was glad to see them laughing. She was sure that it was helping their nerves. She didn't want them to get too nervous before their mission.

A minute later her sister bounded over and took the seat across from where Kera sat. Her eighteen-year-old sister had always been energetic and a bit of a social butterfly where Kera was a bit more reserved and calm. Despite their different personality traits, their circumstances had always pulled them close, especially since they were the only two people who had survived and not been captured on Mindoir by the Batarian slavers.

"So, are you nervous?" Elena asked.

Kera smiled. "Maybe. Are you?"

Elena scowled playfully for a moment. "Maybe," she answered back.

Kera imagined that she was. This was Elena's first mission and Kera knew that the butterfies in her stomach must have been fluttering very strongly.

"I'm sure that you'll do fine. Just remember your training during the mission."

"What, exactly, are we doing down there anyway?"

"We're supposed to be looking for signs of the lost pioneer team. We are going to be searching for clues to what happened to them and if they are still alive."

"Sounds like fun," Elena muttered sarcastically.

"Things shouldn't get too exciting down there. There's a number of things that could have just happened to their hardware to disrupt their signal."

"Or some big monsters could have gobbled them up and are waiting for us to land." Elena smiled.

Kera rolled her eyes at her sister's response. "That's very likely not to be the case."

"We'll have to see." Elena smiled.

"You have watched way too many horror vids, Elena." Kera shook her head. Her sister had quite an imagination.

The conversations that the marines were having on the ship ended abrubtly as the comm system blared on.

"We will be landing shortly," a sweet, robotic female voice spoke over the comm, "Please buckle your seat belts as we do so."

Elena waved good bye to her sister as she ran back to her original seat near Corporal Toombs and her other acquaintances. Kera followed the voice's instructions and buckled her seat belt. She never enjoyed landings.

* * *

Sorry that this chapter was so short, but I felt that this was needed before we continue to the more exciting stuff. Feel free to leave a review!


	2. Chapter 2

Hello! Lilliwyn is here again with another chapter to her story. I have just moved and finally got my internet back. I can't tell you how happy I am to finally get this chapter up. :)

Many thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter! I really, REALLY appreciate it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect. This is simply a story that takes place in that universe.

* * *

Commander Kera Shepard and her crew stepped off of the loading ramp and onto the ground. They stopped for a few moments to take in their surroundings.

Akuze was even more beautiful on the ground than it was up from the sky. There were many trees, flowers, and bushes around that were teeming with life. Small birds flew about and twittered to each other, while small, furry rodents crawled through the flowers and under the shrubs. To Kera's right was a small creek that gently babbled over rocks and through bends and several yards to her left was a field of tall grasses and flowers that bent and danced with the wind. Kera took a deep breath of the fresh air before turning to Elena, who stood beside her.

"Now, how can this area be something out of a horror vid?" Kera whispered to her sister with a smile on her face. Elena shrugged.

"Looks can be deceiving."

Kera rolled her eyes and then turned towards her soldiers.

"Let's move out," she ordered as she led them in the direction of the area where the pioneer team's signal had last been received.

After about two hours of marching over hills, walking through plains and small wooded areas, the marines found themselves on another hill looking down at a rather large circular-shaped clearing which was surrounded by hills on every side. What was inside the clearing was what surprised them the most. Inside the clearing was many ditches and overturned ground that went in lines around the clearing, as if something big had traveled under the ground.

"I'm afraid that this is our destination," Kera said to her soldiers. "Let's look for any clues of the pioneer team here."

The marines carefully descended down the hill and into the clearing.

"This is really wierd, isn't it, Kera?" Elena asked as she went to join her sister to look for clues.

"It is," Kera answered. "I've never seen... tracks like these before."

"Me neither. Do you think that there is a huge gopher monster here?"

Kera chuckled softly to herself. "I doubt it." If there were such a thing as giant gopher monsters, though, the tracks that the team found would definitely prove their existence.

"Commander Shepard!" A marine that shouted from the other sign of the clearing woke the Commander from her thoughts. Kera strode over to where the marine shouted to see what he had come upon.

"I found this," he said as he pointed to a small appliance that laid in the dirt near one of the large tracks. It looked almost like a radio, since it had a large antenna sticking out of its top and a dial in the middle of it that was surrounded by a circle labeled with different frequencies.

"This must have been the pioneer team's signal receiver," Kera said as she picked it up and took a look at it. "Have you found any other equipment nearby?"

"No, Sir," the marine answered.

"Well then, let's keep looking. We need to find something that may prove that the team didn't just get clumsy and drop this." The marine nodded as he walked over to his comrades and joined their search.

A half an hour flew by as Commander Shepard's party searched the area with no success of finding any other evidence of the pioneer team's fate. Finally, after much digging and sifting through the dirt, a call for the Commander came from the other side of the clearing.

"Commander!" a voice shouted with more than a little hint of distress in his voice. Kera hurriedly dropped what she was doing and ran over to see what the marine had discovered.

The soldiers were none too happy to see what the man had found. When Kera started to walk closer to where the marine was taking her a rancid odor came from the direction which they were walking towards. Kera had to recollect herself when they came to their destination and the Commander saw what laid before her.

A young, male body laid in a depression at the bottom in one of the hills, lifeless and still. There were large holes in his armor that bore no bite marks, bullet holes, or signs of puncture. Through those holes showed large, festering, severely burnt patches of skin which strangely was moist and stank of acid.

Kera walked over to the dead corpse to take a closer look at it. She didn't find any other wounds except for the burns. She sighed as she realized that Elena's silly joking may just come true, although she thought that her team may get off lucky if it turned out that the man's killer was a giant gopher monster.

"It looks like he's a surveyor from the pioneer crew," the commander finally spoke up with dismay. "It seems the poor guy didn't stand a chance." She looked back at the marines who were watching as their faces paled. "Has anyone seen any traces of the other members of the pioneer team?"

The soldiers shook their heads.

Kera frowned and sighed as she looked up at the setting sun over the horizon. They were losing daylight.

"Let's set up camp; we'll continue searching in the morning."

Kera's soldiers nodded as they started to set up the tents a couple of yards away from one of the hillsides.

* * *

Corporal Richard Percy had his shift on watch that night, and so far it had been pretty uneventful. The only sound or movement that whole night had come from the bats who would chatter and chase each other. Time passed slowly, but the sun had finally started to peak over the horizon. It painted the sky beautiful shades of pink, gold and lavender. Percy sighed a sigh of relief; his shift was almost over.

Suddenly, the corporal could feel a tremor under his feet, as if something was moving under him. This feeling was fleeting and was gone in a moment, so he payed no attention to it. It wasn't but another minute until the feeling came again. This made Perry nervous, so his hand flew to his assault rifle and he pulled it out of his holster.

Moments of total silence felt like minutes as Percy waited for the feeling again, but he felt nothing but the gentle kiss of the cool breeze and the touch of the new sun's light for what seemed to be a very long time. Just when he was about to put away his rifle, the feeling came again, but this time it was stronger and it felt like whatever was causing it was closer.

The corporal watched in horror as a giant wurm-like being broke through the ground and stood tall in front of him. For several moments, the marine just stood there, unable to act. The monster took his turn first though, and spit a greenish ball of goo towards his victim. Percy didn't have time to retaliate before the glob of acid splashed onto him and began to eat through his armor.

"Commander Shepard!" Percy shouted as the monster descended upon its prey.

* * *

Kera woke and quickly sat up, carefully looked around and reached for her pistol. Elena seemed to have heard the commotion too and she quickly started to put her armor on.

When the two were properly equipped, they wordlessly exited the tent and walked outside onto their campsite. The other marines must have been woken up by the noises too, and they followed the Shepards' example.

"Percy had a shift on watch for part of last night and this morning, didn't he?" Kera asked one of her marines. He nodded. Kera trembled inwardly as she heard his answer. She became afraid that she was going to find his corpse.

Kera put a finger to her lips as a signal to be quiet she led the marines over to the makeshift watch post for signs of the Corporal. The commander braced herself for the sight that may lay before them, and then turned around the final corner.

Some of the marines gasped as they saw what laid before them. There was another giant ditch, but there was also a puddle of green goo in the dirt next to the watch post. There was no evidence of Percy other than a splatter of blood near the ditch's opening. Kera figured that she didn't have to guess who it belonged to.

Soon the marines could feel shaking under their feet. It seemed that it ended just a moment after it began, but the only thing that the marines could do was stand and stare at each other as they tried to figure out what to do.

"Stand your ground!" the commander shouted as the soldiers got in position and pulled out their weapons.

For another minute or so there was nothing but complete silence. The soldiers stood frozen as the waited to see what would happen.

The ground began to shape as a huge creature - the same that killed Percy - erupted from the ground. Shrieks of panic came from some of the weaker-hearted marines, while the ones who were able to keep level heads started to shoot at the monster. Their attacks were futile, though. The bullets would immediately bounce off the sinews of the insect-like wurm.

Cries of pain came from the soldiers who fell victim to the creature. Many of them were dragged down with it to presumably become its dinner.

Just when the soldiers thought that it couldn't get any worse, more tremors started under their feet. Two more of the creatures surged up to join the other one's hunt. More of the marines began to panic and attempted to run to safety, only to get shot down by one of the creature's balls of acid and dragged down by one of their tentacles.

Kera watched in horror as her comrades were killed one by one. They were dropping like flies! Their attacks were doing nothing to hurt the creatures; even her biotic attacks wouldn't phase them.

"Retreat!" she barked hurriedly as she turned for the hills. The few remaining marines gladly obeyed as they sprinted in the same direction. A couple of them weren't fast enough though, and they also fell victim to one of the monsters.

As Kera, Elena and the remainder of the commander's squad got out of range of the three creatures' attacks, they disappeared under the ground. A couple moments later the tremors started once again and the ground behind the fleeing marines broke open as the monsters reappeared.

Two of the marines were grappled by the creatures' tentacles and pulled down with them. The monsters let out high pitched yells as they did so, which almost sounded like laughing.

"Keep running!" Kera shouted as the marines started to get tired from running. "We're almost there!"

The last five of the squad gave it their all as they ran to the hill. But soon, cries of agony came from one of the soldiers as she was chosen next to become one of the monsters' meals. Four became three in but an instant as another acid ball splashed onto his armor.

"We can make it!" the commander shouted as the three made it to the base of the hill. But the last of the marines was too slow, and he screamed as one of the monsters' tentacles wrapped around the marine's leg and dragged him down into the creature's hole. Kera and Elena stared in shocked horror as they realized that they were the only ones left.

The two hurried over out of the range of the creatures' acid balls and ran over the top of the hill to the other side. They collapsed there on the grass under a shady tree.

"We're the only ones left," the commander said in-between breaths. She turned to her sister. "They're all dead, every single one of them."

"You didn't know what was here, Kera. You didn't know how to prevent this."

Kera nodded as she started to rise to her feet but was taken aback by a strong pain at her side, which sent her back down to her knees.

"Kera, what's wrong?" Elena asked with more than a hint of fear in her voice. Then she noticed a small circle of green goo on her sister's right side that had already started eating through her armor and her skin.

"Hold on, Kera, you're going to be okay," she said as optimistically as possible.

Her sister's concienceness began to waver as Elena began to try to treat her wound. In but a minute, everything turned black.

* * *

"So, how did the experiment go?" Dr. Pierson asked his aide, Nathan Clark as he entered the research facility.

"The Thresher Maws had the same reaction to the marines that they had to the pioneer team," the aide answered. "None survived except two stragglers who managed to make it to the hills on the south side of the clearing, and this one man that we were able to get our hands on before the threshers."

Behind him two more of Pierson's aides carried in an unconscious Corporal Toombs over to the doctor.

"Very good. Start running experiments on him to see how powerful the thresher's acid is."

The aides nodded as they took the marine to one of the labs.

"Oh, and Clark?" The aide turned to him at the sound of his name. "See to it that the remaining two are forced back into the clearing. It wouldn't hurt to observe the threshers' behavior one more time," the doctor said with a smirk.

"Yes, Sir."


End file.
